Let me start with a number that should make every leader uncomfortable.
Only around 30% of organizational transformations are truly successful. That’s not a new finding. McKinsey has been citing it for years. Prosci’s research across thousands of organizations tells us why: in 39% of cases, the primary cause of failure is people resistance and related behavioral issues. In another 33%, it’s the lack of adequate leadership support and sponsorship.
Together, that’s nearly three-quarters of failures driven by the human side of change.
If these numbers bother you — good. They should. I invite you to read on.
Why This Matters More Than Ever
We are managing change in a fundamentally different environment than we were ten years ago.
Research shows that the average number of organizational changes an employee experiences per year has grown fivefold in the past five to six years. The pace of transformation has accelerated dramatically – driven largely by digitalization, automation, and AI. But while the trigger is often technological, the consequences are deeply human.
The result? Change fatigue. Many organizations have reached a saturation point where people are not resisting a specific initiative – they are resisting the relentless state of constant change itself. That’s a different problem entirely — and it needs a different response.
There’s another dynamic worth naming: middle managers are caught in the most difficult position. They carry pressure from above to deliver the change, and absorb the frustration and uncertainty from below. And yet, as Prosci research consistently shows, they are also the most influential figures in determining whether a change lands or fails – because they are the people their teams look to for direction, reassurance, and answers.
The middle manager is simultaneously the most burdened person in a change process and the most critical one.
If we want change to succeed, we need to invest in this layer — in the people who stand between strategy and execution every day.
The CLARC Model: Five Leadership Roles in Change
Jeff Hiatt, the founder of Prosci, conducted research across thousands of organizations from the 1990s onwards. One of his most important findings was that the single most critical factor in the success of any change initiative is active, visible leadership support. The CLARC model is built on this foundation.
But before we look at the model itself, three other findings from that research are worth keeping in mind.
- The first: when a question arises during a change, team members turn to their direct manager — they wait for their manager’s answer, and they accept it more readily than any other source.
- The second: the project team cannot truly replace the leader’s role. A change team can support, but the real work of change happens in a one-to-one conversation between a manager and their team member.
- The third: leadership activity has a measurable impact on project return on investment.
With this in mind, let’s walk through the CLARC model.
C – Communicator
In this role, the leader communicates clearly what is changing, why it’s happening now, and what the risk of not changing actually is. Without this, teams are left guessing. And people who are guessing tend to fill the gap with anxiety, rumor, and resistance.
Leader in action: “My team asked why the process was changing. I sat down with them and explained the background.”
L – Liaison
The leader serves as a bridge between the project team and the affected organization – ensuring two-way information flow. When this role is missing, resources get withheld, information gets filtered, and the project team loses touch with the real emotional state of the people it’s trying to change.
Leader in action: “I brought feedback to leadership about what was worrying my team. I didn’t filter it.”
A – Advocate
The leader visibly stands behind the change – not just in formal communications, but in daily behavior and conversations. If your team doesn’t see you believe in it, they won’t either.
Leader in action: “I stood up for the change even when I didn’t agree with every detail – because I believed in the goal.”
R – Resistance Manager
The leader actively identifies, understands, and addresses resistance. This is the hardest role – and the one most consistently underestimated.
Leader in action: “I noticed someone was angry. I didn’t ignore it – I asked what was wrong.”
C – Coach
The leader supports people through the transition — building capability where it’s actually needed.
Leader in action: “It’s not enough to tell people what’s changing. I helped them learn how to actually do it differently — not just once, in a training session, but continuously, on the job.”
Whose job is this, really?
These roles don’t belong to the project team — they belong to the leader. A change team can support, but it cannot replace the trust, authority, and proximity that a direct manager carries.
Not every leader plays the same role in a change process — and that’s by design. Senior leaders are primarily Advocates — they set the tone and signal that the change matters. Middle managers carry the broader load: they are the Communicators, the Coaches, and the Resistance Managers — the people closest to those who actually have to change.
Most organizations invest heavily in the project — in the system, the process, the technology. And almost nothing in preparing the people who are supposed to lead others through it.
Leaders want their teams to succeed. But without the right framework, even the best intentions can miss what’s actually happening on the ground.
If you want to understand how a leader can identify the root cause of resistance — whether it’s a knowledge gap, a capability gap, or something emotional — and what to do about each, follow my posts and read Parts 2 and 3.
Part 2: The diagnostic — Not Knowing / Not Able / Not Willing. Why the same behavior can be rooted in three completely different causes — and why the wrong intervention makes things worse.
Part 3: The tools — the ADKAR model, the four questions I ask in my projects, and why managing resistance measurably increases the odds of success.
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